California Demographics

Heather Mac Donald has done an article about demographic trends in California for City Journal. As you read it you'll subjectively feel that every third word is "Hispanic." If you read carefully, it turns out that most of these Hispanics are in fact Mexican immigrants and their children.

Mac Donald works hard to find some positive notes to strike, but the overall theme is not positive. Contributing to California's budgetary problems is the following:

U.S.-born Hispanic households in California already use welfare programs (such as cash welfare, food stamps, and housing assistance) at twice the rate of U.S.-born non-Hispanic households, according to an analysis of the March 2011 Current Population Survey by the Center for Immigration Studies.

Welfare use by immigrants is higher still. In 2008–09, the fraction of households using some form of welfare was 82 percent for households headed by an illegal immigrant and 61 percent for households headed by a legal immigrant.

This is an article for those interested in the future of California, although it is more bad news in one place than is comfortable.